Tea Leaves has a
good
article about the lack of non-violent options in computer
games. The point I like best is that RPG narrative
is heavily limited because you're only rewarded for
killing things.

One exception I hadn't seen before is
HarvestMoon, a farming RPG. You pull weeds, plant crops, and try to marry someone in
your town. The intro to the SNES game is charming - "how to play" features
scenes of you breaking rocks and removing stumps. The
screenshot above is the village church. I love the idea
of a Japanese corporation earnestly making a cute simulation of
agrarian Europe.

Props to the SNES emulation community for making it so easy to see
these old games. There are lots of good SNES
emulators. SNES9x is a well
behaved Windows app; ZSNES is
funkier but has better realism for video and sound emulation.